


Inside Out

by my_words



Category: Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_words/pseuds/my_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the pressure of prying eyes gets to be too much</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SnowStormSkies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowStormSkies/gifts).



He forces his hands to unclench. He tries to make his eyes settle on someone, anyone. He hopes the words that are coming out of his mouth don’t make him sound like a fool, but he knows the racing of his heart and the icy flames he feels in his gut are probably noticeable as he stumbles over what he’s saying.

This isn’t what he signed up for; this wasn’t ever part of his dream. He only ever wanted to be able to lose himself in the music, to climb the scales and flow with the notes. And if he could take a few other people along with him, so much the better. 

He knows that it’s all part of the package; that if he wants to be able to live off his music he has to pay the price, but at times like this he’s not sure he can afford it. The leading questions he gets asked, the crowds that never see him because they’re trying too hard to look inside him, the condescending shit he gets served from people who try to make him think they care about him all force him to close in tighter, to protect who he really is and what he really feels.

The unrelenting demand to not say the wrong thing echoes through his mind as he keeps his words to himself. The fingers that want to fly over strings and feel nothing but beauty vibrating beneath them slowly pull into fists to keep them still. 

When he’s in the spotlight like this, he thinks he would be willing to give it all up, but he knows he’s lying to himself. Or maybe he was lying to himself before, when he thought he wanted this. Maybe he just wanted to live in some perfect make-believe world where he could spend all his time making the notes sing for the pure thrill of it.

The small, jittery feeling keeps working its way to the surface, and he sees the looks he’s getting: looks that think they know something, but they’re wrong. They’re always wrong, but he never has the energy to set them right. 

He tries to find the calm, still place as he waits for his cue to play the notes he knows so well. He tries so fucking hard, but the more he tries, the more he feels all those eyes on him. He knows they’re watching, ready to pounce on the smallest imperfection, and he’s giving them exactly what they want as he feels the pressure building.

 _Stop looking!_ he shouts in his mind. He wants so damn bad to say it out loud, to let them know he doesn’t want them to know him, the secret, private him, but he knows he’ll never do it. He hopes to fuck he’ll never do it, anyway. Sometimes when he feels the spotlight settle on him, and the pressure of all the attention tries to suffocate him, he’s not sure what’s happening inside his head, and what’s happening outside it.

Instead, he closes his eyes and turns his face away, hoping he can escape into the notes he’s creating. Sometimes, when he’s really feeling it, the music surrounds him and protects him from all the eyes and all the prying and all the sickness trying to worm their way into his thoughts.

But the music has a price, too. The music makes him pay, and pay, and pay, with little pieces of his soul. He's willing to give them to the music, but he thinks it should be a private moment, a moment of living in perfection and truth, too personal to share with all the hungry eyes looking at him, looking into him.

He forces himself to take a breath, and then another. Just breathe, just live, and the music will sustain him. For a few seconds he manages to put his mask on and open his eyes. He thinks he even smiles a little. But then he sees the faces looking at him, and they’re so close - too close - and he shuts down again. He thinks he’d be okay with this if there were a shield, a buffer zone, a fucking layer between him and the eyes that keep looking, and looking, and looking right down inside him.

He realizes that it’s not just his eyes that are shut now; his mind has closed itself off from what’s happening too. His fingers and hands continue to play, doing the tricks they’ve learned so well, and he hopes they’re playing the right notes. He’s scared shitless that someday he’ll get so deep inside that he’ll break right on stage, and wouldn’t that be the most wonderful fucking thing. He’d finally give them all what they want: a look inside, a trip through his mind. 

Today, though, he pulls back in time. He hides it away, sits like he knows he should, and waits until he can be alone. He tries to calm the twitches and the fidgeting, knowing all the while he’s only making them worse. He finally gives up, detaching and hiding behind whatever he can. 

He can still feel them looking at him, and he can see the gossip starting behind their eyes. There’ll be whispers online tomorrow - whispers of poor showmanship or badly concealed drug use. He’s seen them all before, and he knows he’ll see them again. He could correct them if he really wanted to, but he thinks it’s better this way. It’s better if they don’t know the truth.


End file.
